General XMB
Management

The XMB "Cross Media Bar" displays data vertically in a large, open
directory.
It can display subfolders generally to a single depth. In
layman's terms, most sections of the media bar, particularly Music,
Pictures,
and Music, will display all the files under them and one tier of
folders, and no further. This is explained in greater detail
in the Movies, Music, and Video section.

APPEARANCE

Most functions of XMB customization are accessible simply through
the
Settings column. Many individual aspects can be adjusted by
highlighting the item in question and pressing TRIANGLE to view its
related options.

Example: By default with newest firmware updates, there is generally a
scrolling PSN news ticker in the upper-right corner along with
date/time information. The 'Information Board,' as it is
called, can be disabled under the PSN column by pressing TRIANGLE on
the Information Board icon.

The overall appearance is changed by XMB Themes, which can be
downloaded from the PSN Store or an external drive and set via the
Settings column. More information is available in our Themes
section.

ORGANIZING
CONTENT ON THE PS3 HARD DRIVE

Compatible files that have been downloaded or copied to the PS3
itself
are essentially stored in one enormous directory for that type of
file. By default, when you look under the 'MUSIC' column you
will simply see a full list of all music files on the internal hard
drive. The same display is default for video, picture, and
game content. You can change the arrangement of the files by
pressing SQUARE while viewing that column.

Some columns, particularly the Music column, have many different
criteria that can be sorted with the SQUARE button. All of
them at least have an option to display items by 'album.'

Using
'Album'
tags is the best way to organize files on your PS3 without putting them
on an external drive and changing directories with a computer.

All files, even Video and downloaded games can be assigned to an
'album.' Simply pick a file (or even a Game) on the hard
drive and press TRIANGLE, then select 'Properties.' All files
give you the option of changing the 'Album' setting under that file's
properties. Once assigned an album, you can press SQUARE to
change the view to 'Album' and see all files with that tag assigned to
a folder under that name.

This can be incredibly useful for managing downloaded PSN games,
especially once you have a large variety of different formats filling
up your Game column. A convenient example is assigning all
downloaded PS1 games to a 'PS1 Games' album, making a 'Demos' album,
and etc. It will reduce clutter and make particular titles
easier to locate.

Similar examples for the other XMB columns can be found on their
respective pages of this site.

DISPLAYING
CONTENT ON EXTERNAL DRIVES / DIRECTORY NESTING

On the three 'media' columns of the XMB along with the Game column,
any
connected external drives or inserted data discs will appear.
What directories the XMB displays depends on which column you are
looking in. For example, if you connect a USB thumbdrive and
select it under the Music column, it will immediately open up the
'Music' directory on that thumbdrive. If there is no
directory labeled 'Music,' it will say nothing is found. If
the directory is empty if will say the same. If the directory has
subfolders within it, it will display those folders and allow you to
open them and any files in them. It will not display any
subfolders past that level.

So, for example, a thumbdrive with the following contents would show up
as empty when viewed under the Music (or any) column.

THUMBDRIVE ROOT:\ Song1.mp3Song2.mp3Song3.mp3

The PS3 will not see any of those tracks when opened under the Music
column because it automatically looks for a directory labeled
“Music.” If those tracks were in a “Music” directory as
below, the PS3 would display them.

THUMBDRIVE
ROOT:\ MUSIC
\ Song1.mp3Song2.mp3Song3.mp3

To go one step further, the PS3 will also recognize subfolders within
the Music folder.

THUMBDRIVE
ROOT:\ MUSIC \ Song1.mp3
ALBUM \
Song2.mp3Song3.mp3

Any folders within that first subfolder will not be
displayed. The Video and Pictures columns work identically,
except searching for a “VIDEO” or “PICTURE” folder on the external
drive rather than “MUSIC.” The same rules for directory
depth/nesting apply.

VIEWING
ALL NESTED DIRECTORIES WITH 'DISPLAY ALL'

This means that external drives (such as USB Hard Drives or
thumbdrives) should have their files and folders arrange particularly
for the PS3 if you wish to use them on a regular basis.

You still have the option to view all directories within a drive freely
by choosing 'display all.' To use this option, scroll to the
icon of the drive in question and press TRIANGLE. From there
you can choose 'Display All' and go through directories freely to a
depth of eight nested subfolders. It will only display files
themselves if they are playable under that column. For
example, if you go under the VIDEO column and highlight a thumbdrive,
press TRIANGLE, and select 'Display All,' it would show all folders,
but only files that are a video format the PS3 can display.

Using Display All frees you from looking only in PS3-specific labeled
“VIDEO” directories or being limited to only one depth of
subfolder. It will not, however, display any incompatible
files. If there were any MP3 audio files in those
directories, for example, they would not be visible when searching
under the Video or Picture columns.